A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
The Supreme Deity, one of these two first beings, they call
_Taroataihetoomoo_, and the other, whom they suppose to have been a
rock, _Tepapa_. A daughter of these was _Tettowmatatayo_, the year, or
thirteen months collectively, which they never name but upon this
occasion, and she, by the common father, produced the months, and the
months, by conjunction with each other, the days; the stars they suppose
partly to be the immediate offspring of the first pair, and partly to
have increased among themselves; and they have the same notion with
respect to the different species of plants. Among other progeny of
Taroataihetoomoo and Tepapa, they suppose an inferior race of deities
whom they call _Eatuas_. Two of these Eatuas, they say, at some remote
period of time, inhabited the earth, and were the parents of the first
man. When this man, their common ancestor, was born, they say that he
was round like a ball, but that his mother, with great care, drew out
his limbs, and having at length moulded him into his present form, she
called him _Eothe_, which signifies _finished_. That being prompted by
the universal instinct to propagate his kind, and being able to find no
female but his mother, he begot upon her a daughter, and upon the
daughter other daughters for several generations, before there was a
son; a son, however, being at length born, he, by the assistance of his
sisters, peopled the world.
Besides their daughter Tettowmatatayo, the first progenitors of nature
had a son whom they called _Tane_. Taroataihetoomoo, the Supreme Deity,
they emphatically style the causer of earthquakes; but their prayers are
more generally addressed to Tane, whom they suppose to take a greater
part in the affairs of mankind.
Their subordinate deities or Eatuas, which are numerous, are of both
sexes: The male are worshipped by the men, and the female by the women;
and each have morais to which the other sex is not admitted, though they
have also morais common to both. Men perform the office of priest to
both sexes, but each sex has its priests, for those who officiate for
one sex do not officiate for the other.[31]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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